Mixed Signals
by vvheel
Summary: While he was sleeping, she was always awake. Dean/Emma


******Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with WWE or its sports entertainers.**

******Inspiration: TyphoidCandy on Tumblr**

******Rating: T for mentions of sex and Dean's vocabulary.**

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Even when they were on the same work schedule, it seemed that they were never quite in sync. Perhaps she could blame that on her Australian biological clock, but it never had been so obvious before. She was always early to bed and early to rise, preferring to jog in the crisp morning air than under the afternoon sun, which could be a major problem depending on where she was located at the time.

That's why when Dean was passed out asleep, Emma was usually awake. She hadn't expected after the first few times that he would confess to her that his least favorite thing in the world was waking up alone. And despite this originally being a more casual affair, Emma was fiercely loyal to those she cared about and, heaven help her, she cared about Dean.

And here she was, another day off spent lying awake in bed. The clock was flashing 6:00am and it was time for her morning run, but she supposed in a way she lost some calories last night. Dean would have to make it up to her by spotting her at the gym later. Not that he'd complain, she was sure. What she wasn't sure about, was if he had any idea why she was staying in the mornings as he slept. He had been very drunk at the time of his confession and it had come out in a nearly comically slurred whisper.

Quietly, she stepped out of the hotel bed and strolled to the light switch, turning on the fan and finding a spare tee-shirt to pull over herself. She had never quite understood why people enjoyed sleeping naked. It never felt comfortable to her. However, last night she could remember herself not quite caring as Dean's strong arms held her close as she drifted off.

She stopped short of laying back in bed, instead sitting on the floor next to Dean's bedside. She watched him sleep, eyebrows furrowed and mouth slightly open. His breathing was light, drowned out by the sound of the fan above. She played with the hem of her shirt, leaning forward to place a kiss on his cheek. It was a very intimate act, but she could always pretend it was casual so as not to scare the ever emotion-less Dean Ambrose away.

The peace filling the room was suddenly disrupted by the sound of the phone alarm she had never turned off. In her desperation, she jumped up, leaning across the whole bed as she scrambled to shut off the sound of her theme music. Unfortunately, she was sprawled on Dean in the process and he let out a grunt with her sudden weight. She set the phone down and smiled sheepishly at him. His eyes blinked open, looking at her as if she had just told him a lame joke. She knew that face because their conversations were very much filled with her lame jokes.

She lay down on the bed next to him. Her blue eyes staring into his as he continued blinking at her. "Sorry." she whispered, biting her lip.

He took a deep breath, turning back onto his back. "That's a fucking weird alarm to have."

"Your hair looks nice when it's messy." What a weird thing to say to someone.

"Do you always wake up to your theme song?"

"I really like your voice." She should probably wish him a good morning.

He gave her a strange look. "Thanks...I think? You're avoiding my question."

She smiled, knowing fully that it was a distraction for him. Who knows, maybe she was just messing with him, but compliments typically got emotional reactions from people and she really wanted an emotional reaction from him. "I hope you are feeling okay right now."

He blinked at her as if she had just said something invasive. "Should I not be feeling okay right now?"

"Well," she started, knowing that it probably wasn't the right time, but she didn't become a WWE Diva by biding her time. "You told me once that you didn't like waking up alone."

He looked embarrassed suddenly. "Oh."

She quickly placed a hand on his arm. "I'm not going to tell anyone. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Yeah, don't tell anyone." His eyes darted to where her hand rested on his arm. He turned his whole body towards her, still laying down. "Though, you really don't talk all that much."

"I don't?" she questioned. "I always feel like a chatter box."

"Only in here." he lifted a hand and lightly touched her temple, an intimate gesture that caused her to flush. "I swear sometimes I think you have whole fucking conversations in your head."

She grinned and leaned closer to him. "Well, who's going to listen to my jokes. You?"

She had expected a resounding "Nope." and a shrug. What she had not been expecting was a half-grin and a haughty "Sure, why not?"

She blinked at him for a few seconds before poking him in the bare chest she had been trying to avoid looking at. "How kind of you."

"Yeah I'm a pretty kind guy." he shrugged, sitting up and running his hand through his hair.

From her view laying down, she could see a large, purple bruise on his back. "Ouch."

"What?" he turned to her, wincing when her fingers touched the bruise. "Yeah, fuck, okay, ouch."

"Aww." she smiled, sitting up and kissing his shoulder. "Why didn't you tell me Batista gave you that last night? I would have been more gentle."

He rolled his eyes at her sweetness, masking his discomfort. Such mixed signals. "You know I would have hated that."

"Don't knock it till you try it." she practically hopped out of the bed and away from him (noting how much colder it felt) as she reached for the cell phone she had practically thrown across the room. As she inspected it of any damage, she could feel Dean's eyes on her. Sure he gave her quite a few hungry looks when nobody was paying attention at work, but this felt different. She turned to him, grinning as she waved the phone. "No damage. Which means you can still call me."

He shrugged, eyes darting to the ceiling as if it were more interesting. "As if I couldn't find a way."

"Oh?" she made her way back towards him, seeing his hard demeanor shrink a little. Whether it was in anticipation or fear of the situation, she wasn't sure. But he remained in place, showing Emma that he wouldn't run away. She sat next to him on the bed, leaning her head against his shoulder casually as she checked her text messages. He hadn't said a word for quite sometime. Not removing her head, she turned to look at him.

She ventured further than she usually would. "You know...it's okay in the morning, too."

It had been the evening when she finally cut the sexual tension and kissed him. That had been the only time she'd initiated it. Every other time it was him, claiming her with great enthusiasm. The mornings after, when she'd spent her jogging time watching him sleep, he would act more or less awkward. She'd been hurt, worrying on the phone with Paige (who had been sworn to secrecy) that he deeply regretted what had happened between them. That evening, as he had her pressed against the door of his hotel room, she wondered what had gotten her thinking that.

"Yeah I just...shit, you know." and before he could shrug it off, she sighed and turned her body towards him, her face now very close to him.

"It's too intimate, I understand if it's not what you want." and, with a soft smile, she promptly got off him, casually grabbing a towel and some of her clothing off of the floor. As she entered the bathroom to shower and, in secret, wallow in her own self-pity, she heard him call her name.

Setting the clothing down, she stood back in the door way of the bathroom.

"It's not that, not really. I just don't know how to fucking go about this." he gestured to the whole room, eyes adverted from her.

That's when she knew. By something short of a miracle, she knew this was Dean's way of confessing that he had no idea what in the hell he was doing. Never in her life did Emma think she would be involved in an "I can't quit you." moment. These things didn't happen in real life.

Though her heart was beating so fast it made her dizzy, she managed to calmly approach him and, when his eyes finally rested on her, she climbed into his lap and ran her hands down his well-muscled arms. In a way she hadn't done before, she grasped his face in her hands and kissed him. His hands immediately responded as they ran up her thighs under the hem of her shirt.

When they broke apart, she kept her forehead pressed against his. He had a look of either shock or awe, she couldn't really tell. "Okay I really don't know what the hell I'm doing." he said sheepishly. They both knew he wasn't talking about the physical situation at hand, because he'd proven multiple times that he was quite educated in that field.

She attempted to stifle her smile, but to no avail. "You're a little strange, I'm a little strange. We'll figure it out if you want to."

As his hands traveled further up, taking her shirt with them, she felt a new kind of vulnerability in Dean Ambrose. Before her lips were on his again, he gave her a very characteristic smirk and replied, "Lead the way, sweetheart."

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**Thanks to the above mentioned, I'm hooked on the tiny ship between WWE's Deam Ambrose and Emma, so I decided to write this little vignette to get my toes in the water. **

**I've decided after this that my future stuff will probably be more from Dean's POV and of the M rating. Please Review/Favorite if you enjoyed it. xx**


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